It started off as a joke. To be honest, I hadn't even realized that the Uno Deck had what the spell promised it would. Late at night, I was at a diner with a couple of friends. When the waitress came over with the bill, I slammed my Uno Reverse down, not quite expecting anything to happen. To my horror, her body physically started to twitch, mouth opening as she reached one arm down her throat. From the back of her lungs, she pulled out a horrifying mix of saliva and blood. Yet within the very middle, sat the sixty dollars in cash that we needed to pay.

I tried to get rid of the Uno Deck after that. Almost immediately after we left the diner, I set fire to the cards, all still in a pile. Instead, as the deck tumbled within the everlasting burn, four more copies appeared. I tried to rip them apart, but upon getting to the reverse card once more, I watched one of my friends get torn to shreds. Finally, I threw the deck into a fully filled bathtub. Once more, the reverse card activated, and I slammed into the pull of water, body fully submerged. As my body contorted, and strange patterns grew across my body, I heard somebody in the room talking.

"Who leaves a deck of Uno Cards on their bathtub like that?"

"And why did they throw another deck into the water?"

I stared up towards my sister, as her hand slowly started to close around the original deck. I tried to scream, but my mouth had faded. my body was already fractured into thousands of pieces, individual cards streaming within the water. She turned from the room; the screams started six minutes later.

Power is subjective. A title placed to people that have what we want and dont have. Well you know what I have? I have real power. Objective, magical, whatever I want at my fingertips power. I mean sure, it's in the form of a bright-red reverse card from a child's game, but your mind would melt out of your ear if you saw what I could do with that slip of paper.

It started off small, I mean at first I had no idea what I had got. Played some uno with the deck and when I reversed, well, instead of reversing the order at the table it reversed the whole damn table instead. Whole thing picked itself up and we slid around and got placed in the new order. Well I grabbed the card before anyone else could and pocketed it before anyone else got wise as to what had happened.

Reversing the checks at lunch was next. I remember watching in awe as the waiter slid that red card out from the check folder and then took his wallet out. Hell, he even tipped himself, 25 percent. Generous if you ask me.

But then. Well then that's when I realized what power looks like. Standing in the street, straight on the highway, holding that flimsy bit of paper out in front of me. Meanwhile the cars crashed in piles before me, the rubble flying my way then rebounding right before it collided. Of course police showed up, were nice enough to arrest themselves in a prompt manner though.

But real power? Well....it trumps all of that. All of that is just playing around, juggling with atom bombs. Real power is surviving when you drop one.

I still remember it. I didnt have the time to react, to even think. Of course at this point the card never left my hand, but the bullet came too quick to reverse it. It split through my head as if time had stopped just for me. I guess I had made more than a few enemies by then. Public had taken to calling me a menace. One reverse and I coulda rid myself of the title, but I had grown to like it. Had a ring to it:

The Deck Deviant

The Relentless Reverser

Well after that bullet hit the titles didnt matter so much anymore. Nothing did when it went dark. In that blackness though, well that was the end of something, but it sure as hell wasn't me. No, no, I had power. And real power trumps death. Trumps all. So when death brought down that unholy instrument of many a means demise I did not flinch. I simply held up my card. Then watched as that scythe claimed its owner.

Nobody told me what came next though, I don't think anything knew. Lord knows in my many years since I had tried to reverse it countless times. Tried to die as many others tried. No such luck. Nothing to reverse, what was done was done. Well, that was until a new kid showed up. Reminded me of myself long ago. He stood tall up to me, looked me in my eyes and held up a card of his own. Red, just like mine, with a circle and a cross through it.

"Skip" he spoke. Then it all went black.

Now that? I reckon that was real power.

###Devin's Rules

WC: 764

His name is Devin Blake and a year ago he was just another oblivious high school student with no direction in life. But that all changed in just a handful of minutes. His impenetrable bastion of indifference had come crashing down around him as his father’s office building collapsed as well.

They said it was a terrorist attack—a disgruntled worker named Steve from accounting. But that didn’t make sense. Devin knew Steve from accounting. He spent time at his house, ate dinner with his family, and even laughed at the same jokes Devin had. No—it was not any Steves from accounting.

It’s now midnight, on the eve of the one-year anniversary that altered his post-high school career path. Today, there is to be a grand unveiling ceremony, another monument in his country’s overgrowing garden of consolation prizes. “Sorry, about your loss. Here’s a statue to serve as a symbol for our condolences. Just don’t forget to re-elect us.”

As he walks towards the vacant square, a platform and a podium sit in the center alongside a covered monument. All of the building’s rubble had been removed before they brought in the landscaping crews to install the grass and colorful flowers. The square had changed almost as much as he had.

Devin’s hair is no longer his natural color, being jet black and long enough to touch the top of his shoulders. His dad had always worn a jacket and tie to work, but since his dad no longer needed them, he decided to where one of them tonight. It’s too big though, and the sleeves hang over his knuckles as he brushes his thumb against the card inside the waist pocket.

When all the news stations started blaming Steve, Devin checked out of what everyone else was already repeating. He instead took his time and attention into the darker corners of the web. The places behind and under those other spaces that most don’t dare to look. It didn’t take long to find the ever-expanding conspiracy theories about governmental and big business involvement in terrorist plots.

Without really caring what others were theorizing, he again looked beyond and became enthralled with realities other than the “real-one” and the “narrative-one” that the media perpetuated. No, he chased a way to grasp something beyond what others would try to sell him as “real” or “truth.”

That was when he discovered magic.

As he stops at the city square and retrieves the card from his waist pocket, the light of the full moon glistens off the card’s surface. It has a rainbow sheen that isn’t typical for Uno Cards. Devin turns it over, seeing the two arrows pointing away from each other. He spins it between his fingertips, then holds it aloft as he looks towards the covered statue. “Well, dad,” he says, “Here’s to hoping this doesn’t just mess up your memorial.”

He slams the card down onto the grass covered square.

Devin backs up, not knowing what to expect. He first notices the moon as it begins shifting through various phases while moving around in the sky. He then sees the stars drifting as his world continues to shift.

Shocked, he reaches to cover his mouth with his hands, then finds his sleeves completely covering his fingertips. He looks down to his jacket and it too is considerably looser. He reaches for the hair at his shoulder, and it’s not there, soon finding it cut short like he used to keep it.

He looks back to the square and finds his father’s office building where it belongs, then turns on his heel to march home. He has plans for his father and Steve to attend an impromptu lunch this afternoon. Attendance will be mandatory.

During a surprise lunch from the zero-initiative, high school Devin, phones start going off as social media comes alive. All across the nation, reports are coming in about missing government officials with only cinders in their last known locations. The two main news networks are also off the air due to similar circumstances around key personnel.

Devin walks over to give his father and Steve a beer as they take a break from complaining about work. Their conversation then pivots onto the growing pandemonium that is now gripping the nation.

Devin walks away from the two of them, then leans against the nearby tree of their backyard. He pulls two cards from his back pocket. They have rainbow sheens on one side, and he turns them over to find a mostly blank side. Across the top says, “House Rules.”

Things were very bad, that much was plain. The tight lips and cold expressions of every suit on the other side of the table told Darryl that he was in serious trouble. He briefly wondered if this might have been avoided if he had been more careful, and quickly decided that it probably could have.

“I’m sorry Mr. Royce, but the facts are very clear. Your failure to secure a mutually beneficial arrangement with our prospective clients in South Korea was entirely avoidable. You have cost this company billions.”

Darryl Royce fidgeted in his chair, hoping for another way to get out of this situation, as he had so many times before.

“The board finds no other recourse. You are to be held financially responsible for these losses. Your debt to the Smith-Rosefield corporation is presently estimated at 6.78 billion US dollars, and our inquiries to your bank reflect an inability on your part to repay this.”

Darryl tried to get a word in, anything, as long as it delayed the inevitable sentence, but the unshakable COO of the Smith-Rosefield corporation would not be interrupted.

“As of now, all of your worldly assets are subject to seizure as collateral for our damages. However. I understand you have been in your current position for some time, and as a gesture of goodwill, I will let you speak. Is there anything you have to say in your own defense?”

Darryl Royce said nothing. Instead, he drew a cigarette from his suit pocket, and lit it in front of the board, heedless of the corporation’s strict no smoking policy. As he took his first few puffs, he also drew out his wallet, a battered and scuffed leather bifold. Finally locking eyes with his former employers, Darryl Royce drew out from his wallet a single shimmering playing card, and placed it on the table.

To Zach's amazement, the Uno deck glimmered red in the lamplight. How? Acting without reservation, not taking a single moment to even question what such magic could do, he pulled the top card off of the deck - the all-powerful Reverse card. He held it with his right hand, putting his left out as he pretended to be the powerful mage Priestess Tolar said he would become. Best bitcoin ever spent.

"Reverse!" he said, flinging the card into the air. Pink and purple sparkles flew like confetti all around as it slung back into his hand like a boomerang. Woah!

"Never mind children, for what is and is to become is a fool's errand. How about what was and never will be?" the words of Tolar boomed out into the air. He retracted his left hand and then proceeded to put the card back on the deck.

He started to panic as he soon realized that instead of being in control, his body was moving by itself... backward. A few minutes later he was casting the spell on the deck all over again. "Tenus eekus, molus toolus, into this deck I give Tolar's imbrulus." Except he was saying the words backward and at the end, the deck stopped glimmering.

Stop! I'm ready for this to be over now.

Darkness slowly clouded his vision. His heart beat frantically as the terror of not being able to move sucked him in. Help! Help! I didn't mean to cast this spell. Really! When the black clouds in his sight coalesced, leaving him totally blind, he started to feel as if he were rising slowly out of his body. Then his vision instantly flipped to gray before clearing away all at once. For a brief moment it seemed like the spell stopped until it occurred to him that he was no longer staring out of his own eyes, but at his body from outside, as if he were watching a video of himself. Oh no! What's happening?

Almost thoughtlessly, he watched himself at the computer, using his Bitcoin wallet to purchase Tolar's magic book. What a stupid idea that was. Then he saw himself come in and browse Tiktok videos for a while on his phone before seeing the ad that led him down this rabbit hole. A picture of Tolar with her hands on a crystal ball, the caption above said "Lonely tonight? Need a girlfriend? Do it the magical way!" This was not the girlfriend you promised Tolar!

Maybe it would end at some point? He walked backward out of his apartment, down the stairs, and into the cafe on the lower level where he had eaten a sad plate of spaghetti for dinner. He sat back in the chair and the noodles began to come up from his stomach in bunches, sometimes one by one, wrangling themselves back onto his fork before he stabbed it into the plate. As his dinner reappeared, it started to look more and more organized. So weird.

Then he got up and went back to the library, where he had been studying for his history exam for most of the afternoon. Cars, bicycles, and people flew by as he backtracked his way down the sidewalk for the mile-long trek. When he got to the stone and marble building at the center of campus, he took the seat he had earlier, except this time he was flipping the pages backward.

While watching himself study, he tried to think of ways to try to break the spell. The reverse card - what does that do again? Oh right, it reverses gameplay such that turns happen in the opposite order. Of course. If only he had a card to make that go away somehow. Perhaps another reverse card? Was there some way, any way, he could break this video of his life playing backward to get back to Tolar?

He kept thinking, but found no answers, as he watched himself sit through his morning classes again. The only thing worse than going to class the first time was involuntarily doing it a second. It turns out that reverse time progression made it impossible to hear or understand anything that anyone was saying - voices just came out as a whinny sound, much like the one those old cassette tapes his parents had made when they were rewinding. He had only his thoughts as forty-two students watched a lecture on stoichiometry.

When he arrived back at his apartment for his morning cup of coffee, he thought for sure that the spell would end when he went back to sleep. It couldn't last more than a day. No, that would make no sense. Yet, that was exactly what happened when he crawled back into bed and fell back into his previous evening's sleep. Worse, he was stuck watching himself sleep. What kind of hell is this? How am I supposed to get out of here? Please, someone help! Help!

He started to yell for help without stopping. There was no fatigue or bodily consequences in this video-watching state that he was in. Yells turned to screams, screams turned to anger, anger turned to rage, rage turned to tears, and tears turned to begging. Anyone. His poor mother, his estranged father, the God that he had never believed in. He uttered words to any entity real or imagined that could break him out of this horrible state before he broke down. "Sorry, I'm so sorry. I should have never." Who the fuck trusts a priestess named Tolar? All because I wanted a girlfriend and was too pathetic to take control of my life, be confident, and talk to people.

Yesterday dawned black as he rose out of bed and immediately when to the bathroom to brush his teeth and take off his PJs. The sun rose in the west to greet him as he sat on his computer playing video games while dinking on his phone. God, how much time did I spend on my phone? What if I had done something else with that time? After what seemed like an eternity he put the phone down and went to the table... to eat dinner. Then he got up and went back to the library to study, and then to class again.

Despite his begging and pleas, his life did not start going forwards again as days became months, then years. Given a choice between insanity in his own mind and being a passive observer, he invented games in his thoughts to pass the time. He tried to predict things, like what he would eat for breakfast the day prior, how much homework he'd have, or if something special would happen that day. At night, he tried to predict how often he would snore, the number of times he would turn over, and how many times he'd scratch himself. Remembering Groundhog Day, he never gave up hope that one day for some reason the spell would end. Each time he saw the sunrise from the west, he made another mental tick mark. One day more.

PART II BELOW

"Jerry, this is an intervention." The man said.

"You need to stop snapping peoples necks." His colleague exclaimed.

"And you need to put away that damn Uno deck. " His third friend commented.

"No." I said, glowing with suppressed laughter, "YOU NEED TO STOP SNAPPING PEOPLE'S NECKS!" I paused, as a stunned look appeared on his face. Suddenly, we began morphing into each other, but retaining our features. I look down at the first mans third friend. "AND YOU NEED TO PUT THAT DAMN UNO DECK AWAY!" But my spell didn't work.

And from his pocket he withdraws, an Uno deck of his own. "FOOL!" He exclaims. He withdraws a single reverse card from his deck. "YOU NEED TO PUT THAT DECK AWAY!" I sit, stunned. I begrudgingly surrender my deck, and to add salt to the wound, he pulls a single "+4" card from his belt, and duplicates the deck. But I have a card up my sleeve. I pull the last of my cards from my sleeve, (I keep one up there for situations like this one.) and show it to him. "Uno." I say triumphantly. "NO!" He yells, his colleagues, still on the floor look ashamed of his fatal blunder.

I surrendered my final enchanted card, and then came the crushing realization, (for him) that I, had won.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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